Product monitoring apparatus, systems and methods have heretofore been devised and utilized by the assignee company of the present application. The present application is directed to an improvement over the specific devices as used and disclosed in prior patents granted to this common assignee.
There is disclosed in the prior patents issued to the present assignee a product monitoring system which utilizes an electrically releasable locking device which is secured to products in the establishment and which, in the absence of removal from the product by authorized store personnel, serves to notify the store personnel of attempted unauthorized removal of the product from the premises. This has been in the nature of electrical signals triggered by the device or the device has incorporated means necessitating use of an electrifiable key to facilitate or permit unlocking of the device and removal from the product.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,718,922, entitled "Product Monitoring Apparatus, System and Method", issued Feb. 27, 1973 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,806,910, entitled "Product Monitoring Device and System", issued Apr. 23, 1974, each disclose systems and devices of the type specifically referred to and described in the present application. Both of these aforementioned prior patents are assigned to the assignee of the present application and constitute the best known prior art relating to the presently disclosed system.
While the specific devices disclosed in these prior patents have been generally usuable and have served, at least in part, to prevent unauthorized removal of products from a store, it has now been found that the devices are capable of substantial improvement which further enhance results obtained by their application and use.
Broadly speaking, the prior devices included two arms or members in the nature of a pair of pivot arms having at each free end thereof coactive securement means for attachment of the device to a product, and additionally electrically operable means actuatable to release detent means normally maintaining the two arms in a locked position with the attachment means impaled to or secured to the product.
Under some circumstances of use, and due to the construction of the device, it was possible to break or fracture the attachment or securement means which consisted, in one form, of a pin adapted for passage through the product and encasement within a notch or enclosure in an opposing arm of the device. The present invention substantially diminishes such attempts of breakage of the monitoring device for subsequent unauthorized removal of the product from the store premises.
It has also been found that the prior devices, as disclosed in the aforementioned patents, and which included two pivotally interconnected arms or members having electrical means therein constituting detents preventing unauthorized opening and removal were subject to breakage upon strenuous effort. Such breakage resulted from insertion of some object or device between the two arms and the application of a twisting force to the device such as to spread and/or twist the end jaws of the two arms, and which resulted in a disengagement of the product impaling means and an overcoming of the electrical locking means.
The details of the electrical locking means and the release thereof by application or use of an electrically powered key have been set forth in the aforesaid prior patents. The function of the structure whereby an elongated bimetallic element secured to one of the movable members or arms, mounting a locking pin at its free end normally engageable in a keeper hole or notch in the other movable member, and the actuation of the electrically powered key to deactivate the bimetallic element to thereby permit opening or separation of the two arms, and freedom of the locking pin from the keeper hole are specifically set forth in these prior patents, and will be described in detail herein only to the extent considered desirable to point out and describe the improvements of the present invention.